Yes, I have been spending too much time on the Beaufort St arrondisement, so it was a nice change to be able to head West into the town of Cambridge and down to Floreat Beach.

Look, town of Cambridge elders. When I make my first outing to the coast for the Summer, I don’t expect my family to be confronted with a gold fucking Torana. Clean up your act Cambridge! And while we’re in Floreat, is Floreat Forum the worst looking shopping centre in Australia? Why does it have guard towers? Are there guards up there keeping cowering customers inside? And this is the good view. I wanted to stop and see if the pub The Floreat (Or “The Flogger” as I call it) was as bad as its shopping neighbour, but it was too early. Can anyone tell me?

As to those Young Aussies, for those unaware, this supposedly patriotic but instead rather hilariously moralistic, essentially spoken word monologue set to music, was a huge #1 smash in Adelaide in 1967 during the height of the the Vietnam War protest movement. It failed to make any other charts elsewhere though. Some may wonder why hhehehehe

I chastise myself for not having made this submission myself. If it wasn’t for a few pesky native trees – why haven’t we replaced them all with palms already? – I could literally see the guard towers from my place.

And yes, every time I park up there I look across at the towers and wonder ‘why?’ I look harder and try and find some reason, some remote possibility that it’s simply clever design in play, but no. Them’s guard towers.

Can anyone please find a pic of the pink WWII tank that stood out front of the forum for many years in the late 70s? I remember climbing into that tank one very hot summer day only to find a human turd at the bottom.

Fear not, I’ve emailed the Forum’s centre manager (Quentin) to ask on the origins of the towers:

Hi Quentin

I’m doing a bit of research on the Floreat area and wondered if you could please provide me with some details on the ‘tower’ like structures at the Forum and what they represent? Are they an architectural feature, or are they used as surveillance towers of sort, ie, as in prison guard towers?

My thoughts are that they house telecommunications equipment of some sort, but my neighbour thinks that security people hide up there and pick out shop lifters. He’s a bit paranoid to say the least, but I must say, they really do look like guard towers… it is a faux-prison theme perhaps?

Also, as a lad I remember there being a pink tank in the front of the shopping centre – do you have any images from that time, or can you tell me where the tank ended up? I will never forget climbing inside that tank once – must have been 42 degrees outside and 55 inside – only to find a poo (human) at the bottom. The things you remember as a kid hey!?!?

I know you’re a busy man with so much activity going on, but I’d really appreciate your feedback.

Many thanks
John

PS – the Forum is the only place I could find that sold underpants specifically designed with a pouch in the front to hold a cricket box!!!

FF is the only shopping centre I’ve ever seen that has more ‘old people’s’ parking spots (designated by stencils of bentover figures with walking sticks) than ‘parents with prams’ parking spots. I always just take the geriatrics’ spots because there are never any cars in them.

Cookster @ 8 (etc.) I think it was actually an armoured personnel carrier outside Floreat Forum for us circa 1969 kids to play in. That was pretty cool, though it would have been better if they’d left the ammo in it. I don’t think it was my turd you found, ’cause I left mine in the tank they had at Dianella Plaza. What was it about shopping centres and armoured vehicles back then? Were they getting us kids ready to be conscripted?

I think those guard towers were originally the peaks of Big Top circus tents or something when they revamped the place in the early 80s.

I juggled children in the Floreat Hotel’s ‘Camelot Restaurant’ in the early 90s. It was a good gig. One of the barmaids in the adjacent bar met me at her front door in some very tasteful lingerie one evening; she was a good gig too. (Sorry to keep using this site as a confessional for my youthful sexual sins, LA. Somehow you keep posting stuff that causes eruptions of naughty nostalgia in this ageing Lothario.)

“I juggled children” was shorthand for “I provided entertainment for the misbehaving brats of rich patrons, a job that included the aerial manipulation of objects more numerous than the hands I had available”. In some cases, chainsaws may have been less problematic.

Ahh, poor old Sally, was involved in a bit of a custody battle between 7 & 9 when the PBS Squirral’s Club was originally shown on Nine and produced by Elephant Productions – creators of Flapper the Elephant, and then went over to Ch 7, the original hostess was one Jenny dunstan, sister in law of Barry McKinnon.

Poor old Percy has had an interesting life, sort of became the victim of his introducing Fat Cat as his “entry”, in the World’s Biggest Cat” Competition on Children’s Channel 7 – it drove him to drink, and later on, was very close to Todd McKinney, he was his iiner skin so to speak.

I loved Brindley the cat – channel 9. He was brilliant. Alan Bond painted him on a yacht, or pylon or a cloud or I don’t know what it was but it was what Bondy did best before he got into yachts, kookaburra’s and Danish pastries.

Frank @ 38 -I did a gig once as Captain Flinders at Flinders Square Shopping Centre as the support act to Flapper the Elephant. I was just about to introduce him when his handler, Louise Antonas, whispered in my ear that Flapper had locked his head in the car with the keys, and they had to get the spare head ferried down from Dianella HQ. Much stalling ensued as angry kids and mums threatened to tear down the shopping centre, but Louise sang sweetly and calmed them down.

Cookster @ 37 -I believe P. Penguin’s career was cut short when the guy inside him keeled over from a combination of heat exhaustion and heroin overdose. Or maybe that’s just showbiz scuttlebutt.

Cookster @ 37 -I believe P. Penguin’s career was cut short when the guy inside him keeled over from a combination of heat exhaustion and heroin overdose. Or maybe that’s just showbiz scuttlebutt.

I’ve mentioned this before, but one of my cousin’s first wife was a member of the Shirley Halliday Dancers and performed as a baby penguin during a Miss West Coast Telecast. Apparently Old Percy was as drunk as as anything, and vomited in the suit.

I may be totally wrong, but I “Think” Percy’s Alter ego was this bloke.

Frank @ 43 -Nah, not Glenn Swift. Despite the grey hair, he’s not old enough. Also, I worked with Glenn on quite a few kids’ theatre projects from 1981, and he’s not a substance abuser. Percy had carked it by then. Glenn was/is Perth’s foremost exponent of the Alexander technique for spinal alignment, as well as one of the great womanisers of our fair city. The joke used to be that he’d lay his women down with a phone book under their heads.

I was in the Childrens Channel 7 studio one morning when magician Paul Stanton performed the old rabbit-out-of-his-hat trick, with Fat Cat as his helper. Startled by the bright studio lights, the rabbit made a leap for the closest thing he could find to a rabbit hole -Fat Cat’s mouth. As they cut to an ad-break, the kids were treated to the spectacle of the Obese Feline looking like he was trying to swallow the rabbit whole. I think that was the same day Fat Cat copped a raw egg across his face at the messy end of my jugglig routine, requiring extensive, expensive dry-cleaning. Ah, live TV!

Frank @ 43 -Nah, not Glenn Swift. Despite the grey hair, he’s not old enough. Also, I worked with Glenn on quite a few kids’ theatre projects from 1981, and he’s not a substance abuser.

Thanks for that, was a bit confused as there was a TVW producer who played Percy and was apparently a dancer and appeared on a later Beauty Telecast doing a Charlie Chaplin type routine.

A few years back, Jenny Seaton and Gary Carvolth actually did an interview with the person playing Fat Cat (who according to an independent lighting Person’s facebook page is now a female), which isn’t surprising with blokes being reluctant to be in a suit and cuddling kids, lest they’re accused of molesting the little dears.

Frank @ 46 -for many years -most of his life- Fat Cat was internally animated by a sweet little camp guy called Reg. Off-camera (off-head) Fat Cat was a quite disturbing sight, as Reg wore a sort of cloth swimming cap that made him look like one of the Apollo astronauts without a helmet. Kind of lost and vulnerable.The cap was to stop the sweat running into Reg’s eyes, as he was of course unable to wipe it away. He had a little battery powered fan in there to help too. The head was always kept in a cloth bag until the last minute, because it was just too weird to see it sitting on a chair by itself.

When I did a support gig for Fat Cat at Narrogin in the 80s the long chauffeured drive in a TVW saloon gave Reg the chance to tell me some great stories about some of the weird things that had happened to him -as Fat Cat- over the years. One of these entailed the discovery of a bee inside the head during an outside gig, with Reg unable to do a thing about it. He was also stabbed by a youth with a knitting needle during a shopping centre walkaround. Luckily it was in Fat Cat’s well-padded arse, and did not penetrate Reg himself.

Re your final point about the reluctance of blokes to cuddle kids -I don’t think gender has anything to do with this any more. Women are just as scared to cuddle kids they don’t know, equally fearful of 21st century witch-burning, by which we are all diminished.

Speaking of Fat Cat, Percy AND Dr Peter Harries- via the wonderful people at WA TV History who have uploaded all three to enjoy via an appearance on the Foundation Day Edition of Fat Cat’s Funtime Show.

But you are right, suited characters are easier to maintain because they don’t speak and are easier to replace if they misbehave, as illustrated by an actress who played one of the Teddy’s in the live Bananas in Pyjamas show being sacked after being charged for glassing another woman while drunk.

Frank, I’ve got to say, the general standard of children’s emtertainment has fallen absymally in the last decade. The quantity has increased, but the quality… nah! Maybe it’s sour grapes -I did it for 25 years and have had to retire due to injury- but there are so many time-servers and lowest-common-denominator manipulators just cashing in nowdays. There really is good money to be made, especially through schools gigs, where big numbers can be guaranteed. Yeah, it is sour grapes…

Have to declare an interest here -Wolley the Clown is my brother. Before the late Reg Bolton arrived in Perth in the mid 80s and taught hundreds of kids to juggle, stilt-walk and unicycle, Wolley (Andy) and I were the only Perth clowns with any range of circus skills. Wolley still does heaps of fantastic work as a Clown Doctor at Princess Margaret Hospital and in outback aboriginal communities.

Look, re people in character suits: I think there’s a book in this. I never had anything to do with Percy Penguin (no, really) but used to hang around with the Disney on Parade crew a bit. I know that the lady who played the Wicked Witch had to give it away. After a while, being hated by kids gets to you. Ask any parent.

Err, neck injury actually, LA, but don’t jump to sordid conclusions about that. I’ll see if I can dig out a pic or two.

BTW, I’ll be making a “big comedy comeback” at the Laugh Resort on November 19 -first comedy gig since the last time I had the pleasure of MCing you at the Hyde Park, three or four years ago. It’s a benefit gig with about a dozen comics, so I’ll only have to remember five minutes or so worth of material. Probably about the limit of my attention span these days.

Look what happens, you take a break at post 28 to do some paid work and come back only to find yourself at post 63…

I know that Sally Squirel was played by Narelle Hourn, sister of my best mate, for some time.

Fat Cat… what an enigma… the ‘goodnight’ segments they’re running now at 7.30pm are a fucking disgrace – nothing more than glorified ads to sell stuffed toys. That ‘outsourcing’ has something to do with it I’m sure.

I had a great Xmas ‘out takes’ VHS tape in the late 80s with Fat Cat drinking Jim Beam and looking at stick mags, poking his finger in and out of a ‘hole’ made by his other hand – a great look for teh kideez.

And according to a recent interview on Steve Gordon’s 6PR Sunday Night Show, former Perth Radio DJ and now cabbie Graham Bowra, was selected to be Humphrey Bear for Perth live appearances in the 60’s and mentioned how he had to go to Adelaide and “Humphrey School” to learn the finer arts of suit animation.

I’m pretty sure it also covered areas on how Humphrey should behave in public, care of the suit etc, as well as stuff like don’t leave the suit lying around so kiddies can see it, how to deal with troublesome kids who will try and attack you and so on.

Pretty common sense stuff, these days of course not any old man or woman can don the suit, you now need a working with children card, though that applies to any kids entertainer.

Forkboy @ 68 -Alex Manfrin’s new job is as PM Kev. But I’m sure Malcolm Dix has the smarts to improvise his way through the job. It’d certainly be funnier than the incumbent.

Frank @ 69 -How long will it be before we need a “Working with Women” card? or “Working with Wrinklies”? or “Working with Wongai”? or “Working with Wheelies”? Kids are not the only potentially vulnerable demographic.